The sweetest sound in the stadium was the shuffling of El Salvadoran feet, sadly making their way to the exits from about the 70th minute on. These aren't spirited fans. They're obnoxious. I was in the middle of Honduran fans during the WC qualifier in 2002, and they were great. Nothing like this bunch. I didn't think Nick had much of a chance on the goal. A rocket, right under the bar, and Nick just wasn't big enough to get up and stop it. One of the few times I've attributed a goal to his size. Stokes was disappointing to me. He seemed lackadaiscal almost, a couple of really hairy passes that almost got picked off in the box, and one very bad tackle in the box -- bad not in the sense of his fouling and giving up a PK, but bad in the sense that he landed on his butt and almost lost the ball. Marco played hard, for Marco, but his first two free kicks were a joke, and he missed Earnie by a mile when Earnie had a beautiful run underway. It was great to see Earnie score. But at times he seemed curiously reluctant to shoot. On his second goal I thought he was going to flick it off to someone else again and was screaming "Shoot" when, lo and behold,he did -- beating the keeper to the near post. Speaking of the ES keeper, I thought he was impressive.
Let's see... People in my seat. Check Beer thrown on the crowd Check Commotion in the corner with lots of security rushing in. Check Nationalism in the extreme Check Sounds like a typical El Salvadore night at RFK. Thank God for that score. See ya next year, suckers!
In deference to Thamlin, here's a post minus my pissing and moaning about the security situation (I'll just piss and moan about the game instead). The ES goal was terrible. Great shot, mind you, but Rimando could've punched that away or something. Salvadoreans had a hand in every goal tonight...odd, don't you think? It's good to see Earnie score, but for bleep's sake, can he save it for when points are on offer? Geddes looked pretty good in goal. I might be wrong, but those were his first actual minutes for United? He had a pretty choice save. ES's keeper was pretty good, too. He had a couple of nutso saves. It was good to see Petke clocking some minutes, and Namoff put in a good amount of work. Hopefully Cerritos can bring that form to bear in league play...I would say Earnie too, but that just ain't happenin'...
They played well together, but I'm afraid this was not a good measure for them. The defense of Salvador left our wings wide open all night. Cerritos and Stewart won't see that amount of space in MLS. But, they did seem on the same page most of the night, so I take that as a positive. Also, Quintanilla's shot (assist, but really a shot) on Etcheverry's goal was sweet. He went far post from the corner of the penalty area, and beat the keeper, but just kissed the inside of the post, leading to an easy cleanup by Etch. Q2 had another upper-corner shot stopped only by a great leaping save at another point in the game. He was my MOTM.
Q DCU looked organized and composed. Even when down in the 6th minute they kept their composure (and don't believe that soccernet article about "ES scoring on a looping 30 yard shot") That was closer to 40 yards and it was a laser - one of the hardest shots from a distance I have ever seen. Earnie and Cerritos worked well together. One thing that I noticed right away was that we always had two attackers pushed up as far as the defense would allow them. Usually it was Earnie and Cerritos, but if one dropped back to help pick up the ball someone else, usually Q2, replaced him up top. What a great change from the old scheme which seemed to be "let Ali do the frontrunning by himself, we'll stay back here and watch him get whacked." Earnie was terrifiic, as was Cerritos, but my MOTM was Q2. He showed no ill effects from his injury and made a strong statement that he belongs on the ES Nats. In a way he is like Stoitchkov in that almost every move he makes is an offensive threat. When he gets the ball you can be sure that a killer pass or a shot are but seconds away. The defense looked good, especially Prideaux. Ivanoff played skillfully, Namoff was up to his usual high standard, even though he was switched to the righ side. Stokes played the full match, and though he had a couple of misplays (and had trouble keeping his footing) I thought he did fine. He was in the middle with Brandon and later Petke. Etch hustled more than usual, and was in a more attack-minded mode, but as someone said he sometimes held on to the ball too long and let a tactical advantage disappear. Kovalenko and Olsen buzzed around as they usually do, but both did some blatant fouling that could really cost DCU in a league match. Dema in particular had some nasty fouls, one a clear retaliation after he had lost the ball. I know Stoitchkov is a coach, but does he have to coach THAT? All our subs looked OK, although Carroll hardly touched the ball, and Alegria looked a lot better than OK. He had DCU's hardest shot of the day that was parried off the bar. Geddes seemed a bit shaky, and his goal kicks lacked distance, but he made at least one very nice save that got him a big accolade from Hudson. A very nice evening, even though I was in constant danger of being enveloped by a large Salvadorean flag and smothered to death.
RH did admit that Rimando got 7 stitches. Interesting story about the "how". His dog was locked in the car on Thursday, obviously a very hot day. Rimando broke the window to get the dog out before it died. According to RH, Rimando let the shot go through because of the effects of the stitches in his hand. RH admits that he probably shouldn't have played tonight. Full post game quotes should be up tomorrow sometime. RH is scheduled to be on the show on Monday. He has been under the weather for the last couple of days, so we might give him a break depending on how he feels. Questions can always be sent to Soccershow1120@AOL.com He is scheduled to start full practices on Tuesday.
The Best of Times, The Worst Of Times Before I die of Hepatitis ES from the various stuff thrown at me, here are a few thoughts on this game: 1) Rimando can stop anything inside the box, but long shots give him trouble. A bomb, but right at him, and he simply misplayed it. 2) I stood up 4 times to cheer (once offsides) and there was exactly ONE other person in my section rooting for DCU. ONE. UNO. 1. 3) ES simply blows. Honestly, if the US U-23 team played CD Aguila at RFK (an away match) or even in RFK del Sud in San Miguel, would you expect them to get schooled? 4) Earnie Stewart owns Central America. Too bad DCU doesn't play in the Salvadoran league. Finally, the entire DCU front office should resign in shame for scheduling nonsense like this. Exactly how does this help promote the game of soccer or DCU? The average American fan would never, ever come to a match like this, and WORSE, they believe that EVERY soccer game is like this match. And do you think Salvadorans will be filled with love for the team that bent their equipo nacional over their knee and spanked them in front of the entire population of Wheaton? The money that this brings in isn't worth the harm it does to the image of soccer. I've sat through enough games at RFK where the home team is booed. It's sickening. And the fault is NOT with American fans who don't show up. It's with the geniuses at MLS/DCU/USSF/AEG who market matches like this. I hope they enjoy the 30 pieces of silver. Open invitation for any DCU front office person to bring their wife/husband and kids to the next match like this and sit next to me and see what it's like to root for the HOME TEAM in matches like this. Red card for DCU. I'm disgusted with the whole organization, to be honest. Of course, I'm not so disgusted that I won't be there vs. LA. Yet another opportunity for Salvadoran fans to show their "class", and as an extra bonus, all of Annandale will be there rooting for Bo. Genius, pure marketing genius, from our friends at DCU. Good night.
Just got back from the game. I met numerous Salvadoran fans before, during and after the game.And all of them were really cool. Some of them said they are willing to come out and support United. Marco started the game pissed off. He got fouled and roughed up right in front of La Barra, He booted a couple of bogus free kicks and then settled down. Once he did that he ran the show. Nice crosses and run of play.Olsen,Quintanilla and Chino
Re: The Best of Times, The Worst Of Times I have to disagree with you here, MG. If DCU could sell 25K tickets to rabid DC United fans every game, they would. But they have a business to run, and they need money now. This game sure helps them in that respect, and if they get more Salvadorans to come to DCU games, even better. image having an advertisement that people pay to see. That's what this game was. The Salvadorans should have been impressed with Quintanilla and Cerritos if they care at all about soccer. They both played better than the whole ES team. (Like you said, they blew.) Also, I know for a fact that the United front office is marketing heavily towards the local Korean community for the LA game, and why not? Don't forget that MLS is a business first, and every ticket sold is money for the league. Again, most of the Koreans will come once, or only when Bo is in town, but who knows? Others may like the experience. Another ad where potential customers are paying MLS. Not bad. I would do the same in their shoes. I would rather sit in a sold-out home-team rooting environment, too, but I can't even get my friends, soccer-playing friends I should add, to go to the games for free on my extra tickets. What can you do?
Great Game! DC looked really well tonight (or ES was WAY worse than I thought). Though toward the end it was starting to look pretty unfamiliar. So I was taling with my brother about the awesome game Steward had today. Our prevailing theory is that he got confused, thought this was a national game and actually decided to play well (one could excuse him for that, the uniform top that DC used is somewhat similiar and he was playing a foriegn countries national team.). But at least he delivered. Too bad we couldn't match the result of the US Game that was played against ES last year.
Please tell me Rimando didn't punch the window to break it. Please tell me our starting goalkeeper is not putting his hand through windows.
Oh my...I closed my eyes for a second during the game and when I opened them , I had this huge flashback to a Monday night Chargers-Raiders game I went to at the Murph several years ago. However, I hope the people who were willing to toss away $6.00 beers feel like spending some of their money on DC tickets- it was nice having a crowd for once. BTW, I was at the customer service window and they said there were about 22K in attendance.
Re: The Best of Times, The Worst Of Times If we could get 20-25k at every match they'd make enough money that they wouldn't have the temptation to schedule money-makers like this. Also, if you don't like the atmosphere, don't go. DC can just say "Hey, this one is against the ES nats, not an imposing team on the field, but it gives our players more experience dealing with an imposing atmosphere off the field." I couldn't go tonight (I'm at school a few hours away), but I have never had any problems with any Salvadorans before. Would I take my girlfriend or my seven-year-old cousin? No, I wouldn't. But there are about 16 other opportunities (hopefully more if we make the playoffs) to do that. We should know better than to take newbies or any other non-hardened soccer fans to this type of match. But we won, that's what matters.
Yes. Cerritos and Quintanilla looked very promising Seriously, #19 Pacheco for the obvious long range threat and he's a decent wing back. # 14 Corrales as he's a tricky little bugger and goes to goal like no one's business. #9 Meija who was an absolute beast and also the biggest central American playmaker I've ever seen. Must have been like 6-1 or something and gave DC guys some fits on the ball.
Re: Re: Re: who's credit Thanks. Yeah, that guy. His free kick was an absolute lazer. Stoichkov in his prime.
Yeah, I hate it when the team makes about $500,000 in an exhibition match. Especially against a competitive opponent that gives our team a decent run for it's money. Forgive them for being able to pay Marco, Earnie, and Hristo's salary all in one night. If and when DC gets its own stadium too, that's so much more money on parking (the lots were full as far as I could see) and concessions (lots of beer has to be bought to be thrown, right? ).
That's a really nice story. Props to Nicky for risking his own body to save his dog. Someone said they didn't see Warren on the bench at all tonight, and I don't think that starting Geddes would've been a good idea at all. Jorge did well when he was on though, we definitely have depth throughout the goalkeeping ranks.
really interesting posts, Budwiser's, Thamlin's, Chico's, buchholz'................. but especially Michael Greene's